This is just my little space on the web to post my thoughts and comments. Sometimes stuff will be topical, sometimes I'll just throw in some old stuff I wrote. Sometimes it'll just be stream of consciousness and may not make much sense at all. Hey, it's mine and I can do what I want.
Eventually there'll be some links to other blogs and maybe to some websites that I peruse for whatever reason.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

There MUST be something in the
water in Arkansas. At least in the well some prominent Republicans must be
drinking from. How else to explain their infatuation with the AR-15 rifle? And
shooting people?

Republican State Representative
Nate Bell took advantage of the recent fear in Boston neighborhoods, as police
hunted down the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, to push his agenda supporting
ownership ofhigh capacity
semi-automatic rifles. The AR-15 he mentions has been compared to the M-16
issued by the U.S. Army. Bell thinks we should all have one. Instead of a
chicken in every pot, he wants a rifle in every home. A fast shooting rifle.
With high capacity magazines, meaning lots of bullets.

Using Twitter (his tweet has
since been deleted), he had this to say:

I wonder how many Boston liberals
spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a
hi-capacity magazine?

—
Nate Bell (@NateBell4AR)

Well, Nate, with all due respect, most people don’t want those kinds of
weapons in their homes. People in Boston neighborhoods and nearby towns were
fearful enough without worrying about some nervous Nellie neighbor with an
itchy trigger finger blowing off fifty rounds of ammo every time he thinks he
hears or sees something in his yard. Especially when, given the situation, that
sound is probably a law enforcement officer slinking around the corner of his
shed as he searches for the surviving suspect. And Bell should be more worried
about his own safety as a Republican state legislator in Arkansas. One of his
fellow Arkies thinks legislators that don’t toe the Republican line should be
shot. That’s right. Shoot them. Shoot ‘em all. Or just shoot one and the others
will get the message and fall in line. Yeah. That’ll teach ‘em.

Chris Nogy, whose wife is an Arkansas Republican Party official, took
issue with Republican state legislators after some of them supported a measure
for Arkansas to expand its Medicaid program. The state wants to use the money
the federal government provides for medical coverage for the poor to buy
private insurance coverage for them instead of participating in Medicaid. Nogy
doesn’t agree with that and he’s not happy that some Republicans voted to allow
it. Nogy published his proposal in an Arkansas Republican Party newsletter.

Here’s what Chris Nagy wrote in a piece called “Scathing:”

“The 2nd amendment means nothing
unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and
shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as
representatives. It seems that we are unable to muster that belief in any of
our representatives on a state or federal level, but we have to have something,
something costly, something that they will fear that we will use if they step
out of line. If we can’t shoot them, we have to at least be firm in our threat
to take immediate action against them politically, socially, and civically if
they screw up on something this big. Personally, I think a gun is quicker and
more merciful, but hey, we can't.”

No, Chris, we can’t. We can’t just shoot people who don’t agree with us. We
all have free speech, and legislators are free to vote their conscience even
when it may cost them a few votes. And that’s what they worry about, votes. Not
their lives. They don’t support or oppose bills thinking about whether not
toeing “the party line” will get them shot. And legislators with the courage to
vote for what’s best and just rather than what fits an agenda should be celebrated,
not violently attacked.

Seriously. I can’t even imagine what goes
through these people’s minds. Bell, who deleted his tweet, at least did that,
though it will forever be floating through the internet waiting for an opponent
to snatch it and use it against him in a political campaign. And at least his
tweet, though insensitive and offensive, was not threatening. But Nogy? Nogy
put his idea into print where any other nut job (and yes, I’m insinuating Nogy
is a nut job) might take his suggestion to heart and the next thing you know we
have another Gabby Giffords situation. We don’t need that. We don’t want that!

Some responsible Arkansas Republicans
denounced Nogy’s statements and one even suggested he was one of “the crazies.”
Nogy then issued this lame “apology,” which didn’t exactly help his case:

“And
in this age of death threats from nameless, faceless thugs, we need these folks
to know that while we most likely won't try to kill them or harm their
families, they should be much more certain of our response than fearful of the
actions of those who will not identify themselves.

I believe that in a world of nameless,
faceless thugs influencing our people every day, it is imperative that we
become thugs with names and faces just as scary even if in a different way. If
we don't, then we lose."

Well, that should put people at ease. “We most
likely won’t try to kill them” but if we do, you’ll know who we are. Wait,
what?

While Nogy’s suggestion is vile it is, at the
same time, ridiculous. And for more ridiculousness from Arkansas, there’s this
suggestion, based on the Bible and reminiscent of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal:

The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of
family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be
permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other
children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for
rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for
administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut
21:18-21:

That’s what former Arkansas legislator Charlie Fuqua wrote in his book, God’s Law. He advocates that parents
turn their “rebellious children” over to the state and the state can then
administer the death penalty. No, you cannot make this shit up. Again, he not
only thinks it, he put it in writing.

There are other politicians who make what can only be considered stupid
statements, and that includes Democrats as well. But these three take the cake.
And the icing. And the ice cream that goes on top.